Sixty years of marriage a Joy for Terry
Motueka couple Terry and Joy Norman have had several reasons to celebrate this month, and to top it off, they were surprised with a ride in a hot rod.
Their daughter, Carol picked them up in a dark blue Dodge on Monday morning and their first stop was at the Rutherford Hotel in Nelson for high tea.
‘‘We woke up all the neighbours, it was a wonderful experience, everyone was waving and cheering,’’ Terry said.
’’We haven’t stopped grinning since we got up.’’
The couple, who are originally from England, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on December 1 and then were awarded New Zealand citizenship two weeks later.
‘‘We haven’t stopped celebrating actually, things keep happening,’’ Joy said.
Originally from London, the couple knew each other when they were young as Joy went to school with Terry’s sister.
Terry spent two years with the Royal Air Force in Aden, Yemen. He started seeing Joy after he returned to England and the couple were married in 1956.
They have lived in New Zealand for the last seven years and have a unit at the Brown Acre lifestyle village in Motueka.
They travelled around the country in a campervan on their first visit to New Zealand in 2000. Terry told Joy that New Zealand was just about the same size as England and that they would be able to get around the whole country in three weeks.
‘‘It really was a lot of travelling in three weeks,’’ Joy said.
While waiting at Auckland Airport to fly back to England, they studied a map comparing the two countries.
‘‘It is a lot bigger than England,’’ Terry conceded.
‘‘We may have something like 85 million people and 30 million cars but by golly this is every bit a lot bigger.’’
The couple told their daughter Carol they would have loved to live here but they wrote it off as they were both in their 70s and thought they were too old.
Carol, who had since moved to New Zealand, convinced them that was not the case.
‘‘The icing on the cake was definitely the other day at the citizenship. I have waited five years for that,’’ Terry said.
‘‘This is permanent which is what I dreamt about, I didn’t think it ever possible.’’
When asked what the secret to a long and happy marriage was, Joy said ‘‘love and patience’’ and Terry added, ‘‘it’s love, proper love where two people fit properly.’’